Mr. Mitchell Billionaires' Club Book 2 - Raylin Marks Page 0,161

me whatsoever, despite everything I’ve done to be there for you. I don’t know how many times I asked you why you cower to that son of a bitch, and you never trusted me enough to tell me the whole truth about your past. Complete, fucking addict behavior, hiding everything from people who care about you.”

“Fuck you! Don’t you dare try to use the mistakes I’ve made against me,” I barked, his dark expressions not shaking me. “And you demand my respect? You’re not my fucking husband. You were my boyfriend.”

“It doesn’t matter, does it? Not anymore, anyway. I can’t trust someone who is willing to lie by omission straight to my face multiple times. Even when I opened up to you, stating I would never lose you and would fight for you, you knew—the entire time—that you had no intention of ever doing anything, and you didn’t say a word. I’ve been driving myself crazy for over a fucking month, walking on eggshells around you, holding back everything I had to say so as not to upset you or interfere with your parenting decisions. Little did I know why you were making such horrible, co-dependent, and enabling ones. You’re so fucking willing to hide in your secrets that you put your daughter through this? It’s fucking sick, Avery.”

“Walking on eggshells? Fucking please. I won’t listen to this shit from you. You were born with a silver fucking spoon in your mouth. You don’t understand what it’s like to have nothing and no one and still somehow manage to straighten yourself out, pick up the pieces, and keep going.”

“I understand enough to know you’ll never do the right thing for your daughter,” he said in a voice so lethal that if I were standing next to him, I would’ve slapped him across his face.

“I’m going to pack up my shit and be out of your company and out of your life. I’ll leave the keys to your goddamn charity car at my desk.”

“The car is yours,” he said. “I don’t want the thing.”

“I’m sorry you feel this way about everything, but I couldn’t tell you. I wasn’t ready,” I managed. As much as the defensive part of me felt that I didn’t owe him any explanations, something inside me knew this was all wrong.

“You would never be ready. If you couldn’t be ready for your daughter, what makes me think there would have ever come a day that you trusted me enough to tell me the truth? To tell me everything. Instead, you allowed me to beg and argue you with you about it constantly. It’s not in my character to take a step back, but I did so because I loved you, and look at how that gets reciprocated. It’s been a lie since the beginning, in my opinion. I will not be with someone who hides things from me, especially when they should’ve known I was there to help.”

His words were searing through me, and I was so fucking angry I could’ve thrown the chair across the room as he spoke. Inside, I felt like there was a demon, hearing a priest speaking Latin in an exorcism. Jim was right to be so angry with me, but my fucking defense mechanisms wouldn't allow me to back down.

I should’ve spoken up and told him that things weren’t as they seemed, and I didn’t consciously do anything deceptive, or that I loved him more than I’d ever loved anyone, and I would do whatever it took to earn his trust back. But I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t say anything that would’ve been redemptive. The demon inside me didn’t want to, and the part of me that loved him didn’t feel like I deserved it. What did I care, anyway? This wouldn’t be the first time someone abandoned me when shit got hard. Stand in line with your disappointment, Mr. Fucking Mitchell.

“Well, I didn’t need your help,” I said. “I don’t need anyone’s fucking help to raise my daughter. I’ve done it this long without you.”

“Do what you need to do,” he said. His tone was dismissive, his posture stiff, and it was evident that I was his worst enemy—that was written all over his face.

“Is that your paper or mine?” I asked, ready to walk out of this place and Jim’s life without batting an eye.

“The copy is yours if you want it. I don’t care to ever look at it again. Do what you will with your life;